Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
I whimpered and tipped my head back as he dove in again.
There was a knock.
I nearly kicked Matt in the face as he tried to get up.
“Ms. Holmes,” Marshall said through the door. “Sorry, I know you’re meeting with Mr. Ashe, but your mother has been calling for you pretty persistently and I’m concerned that it might be an emergency.”
Matt struggled to his feet and jerked the panties from my mouth. I hastily stuffed them into my bottom desk drawer, cursing myself for not thinking ahead. I was wearing a skirt and would have to be hyper-vigilant for the rest of the day.
“Did she say it was an emergency?” I asked, handing Matt his cane. We straightened our clothes in record time, and he gave me a quick kiss before heading to the door.
“She didn’t say anything. She hangs up when I answer.”
Matt exited, giving my assistant a nod and said, “I was leaving, anyway.”
“I’ll send you those... things,” I called after him, thoroughly unconvincing in my attempt at cover.
Marshall blinked at me behind his designer frames.
“I’ll call my mom back,” I said, turning to go to my desk.
Marshall whipped something out of his jacket. To my utter horror, it was a pair of my panties.
“I had them laundered, along with the pair you stuffed behind the potted plant.” He said it with a complete lack of judgement.
A different kind of lack of judgment than the one I’d displayed by hiding my panties everywhere.
“Come on,” he said, tipping his head to one side. “Nobody here is stupid. You’re Mr. Ashe’s girlfriend. Nobody holds that against you, but they’re not pretending they don’t know.”
“Yeah but... you shouldn’t have to wash my panties. That seems like grounds for a lawsuit.” Maybe I shouldn’t have said that; I didn’t want to inspire anyone to take legal action against me before my health insurance even kicked in.
“I’ve done worse things for employers, believe me.” He tossed me the panties with a flick of his wrist. “And you’re not the only person in this company doing the nasty during office hours.”
My eyes widened. “Really?”
“Ma’am, you know those nifty little sex resorts this company owns? Who do you think designed them?” He held up his hands and pretended to look around. “This place is crawling with horndogs. But don’t make it too obvious.”
Noted. “Are Matt—Mr. Ashe—and I being too obvious.”
“Only if you keep leaving your unmentionables lying around.” Marshall turned on his heel and headed for the door, tossing off, “Call your mother.”
I waited for him to leave, then wriggled into the fresh panties, sat down, checked out my appearance in my laptop camera, and pulled up a video call. It took a while for Mom to answer.
“Hi, honey!” she exclaimed over the dark screen.
“Mom, turn your camera on,” I said.
“Your dad is here with me,” she said before the screen illuminated and gave me a view of the interior of her car. I got a weird pang of homesickness at the sight of the palm trees through the sunroof above my truncated view of Mom’s head.
She was holding her phone flat in one hand; all I could see of her was from the nose up.
“You have to angle the...” I gave up. “Hi, Dad.”
“Hey, Sport!” He gave a two fingered wave off the top of the steering wheel. Somehow, Mom could manage to get a whole person in the frame, as long as that person was not herself.
“We wanted to check up on you at your new job. I called your office, but I kept getting some man.”
“That’s my assistant, Marshall. You can leave messages with him. Or speak, even.”
Mom made a noise of frustration. “I was thrown. I panicked and hung up. I was having a moment.”
“You were having an elderly moment,” I joked.
She ignored me. “Are you all settled in, then? You’re staying with Matt?”
“I’m staying with Matt,” I confirmed. “Awesome apartment, awesome job, everything is awesome.”
“You know you don’t have to stay in New York if you don’t want to be there,” Dad said. He had a habit of trying to support me by encouraging me not to try. At least, that’s what my therapist said. I was seeing her twice a week.
“Thanks. But I’m happy. And I’m in love. I think Matt is the one.”
“I can’t believe you never told us.” Mom had said this several times over our calls, and she didn’t seem likely to let it go soon. “You were dating him that whole time, and you never told us.”
“You know now.” I desperately wished I had worked out some kind of signal to Marshall, so he could interrupt me when a phone conversation got uncomfortable. At the same time, I missed my parents so much that I didn’t want the call to end. I wanted to talk about something else.